Eggs
by fringeperson
Summary: Once, there was an egg. An egg with a dream... All kids hold an egg in their soul; the egg of our hearts. Angels, guardians, guardian angels. Amu in the middle and drawing it all together. COMPLETE. Don't own.


A five-year-old girl with strawberry-blonde hair and honey-coloured eyes was sitting on her father's lap watching television while her mother made dinner. They weren't watching anything particularly important, in fact the program had just finished and now an advertisement was coming on. The little girl's eyes lit up as she watched and listened to the set inform her about the brand new doll that was being released that week in all toy stores.

"Papa, can I play that too?" the little girl asked, her honey eyes glowing brightly.

"I don't know Amu," her papa answered, smiling. "Maybe. I'll talk to Mama and maybe we'll get you one for your birthday?"

Amu wiggled in her papa's lap. "I'd really like to have a girl one and a boy one," she said. "I'd call the girl Amu – like me! And the boy one would be her protector and keep her safe."

Papa laughed happily. "And what would you name the boy one?" he asked.

Amu thought hard, before finally producing an answer: "Ikuto!"

~oOo~

For her sixth birthday, Amu was taken by her mother and father to the toy shop, where with the assistance of one of the shop assistants, two angel eggs, a programming platform, and two wigs were purchased, as well as some fabrics so that Mama would help Amu to make the clothes for her new dolls herself.

Amu gave her girl angel back-length pink hair, then in the programming platform made her a lightweight with an emphasis on defence and long-range attacks. When she was done, angel-Amu was released and had golden eyes just like her maker. Then the process of her male doll began.

He was given dark blue hair that fell straight but still a little messily about his face, and while he was programmed to have an emphasis on speed and attack, he was only a middleweight rather than a more imposing heavyweight or a very fast lightweight. Ikuto was Amu's protector after all, he needed to be able to protect her. The boy angel came out of the program platform with a slightly darker skin than angel-Amu, and eyes that were the same blue as his hair.

Then she put them both in together and did her very best to calibrate them as a team, so that they would be able to fight together. It wasn't easy, but she was determined, and eventually got some kind of positive result.

"Now clothes!"

~oOo~

Six-and-a-half-year-old Hinamori Amu was sitting at a 'Layer', her father watching from the opposite chair, his camera in hand just like every other visit to Piffle Princess, and she was concentrating furiously to make both of her dolls move at the same time. She'd spent ages getting Amu to move, and then getting Ikuto to move, but this was the first time she was trying to get both of them to move at the same time.

It wasn't supposed to be done, some might even argue that it couldn't be, but Ikuto was angel-Amu's protector, and that was the way Amu wanted it. She wanted them to be a team, to be best friends and be able to rely on each other. Some day, she wanted to put them in elegant, fancy clothes instead of their Chinese-style fighting clothes and make them dance together on the Layer just like Princess Aurora and Prince Philip at the end of Sleeping Beauty – her favourite Disney movie.

For now though, she was just focusing on making them both walk around on the Layer – with different gaits, because their legs were different lengths. It was important to her young thinking that her two angels be able to move separately even though she was controlling them both at the same time. That was the way she wanted them.

Ikuto was offence and protecting Amu, while Amu was the rear-guard making sure that her protector wasn't blind-sided. Though, young Amu really didn't think of it in those terms. She did tell her angels all of her secrets though, and cuddled them at night.

~oOo~

When Hinamori Amu was eight, she got a new baby sister – a new baby sister who she let no where near her angel dolls. Instead, she made a soft doll with the sewing skills she had learned making clothes for Ikuto and Amu, and Ami was happy to chew on that doll's feet, arms, and head.

It was also at this age that Amu felt that she had finally perfected getting both of her angels to move independently of each other while they were both on the Layer and under exclusively her control. She did sometimes just play with one angel or the other, but having them working as a team was more fun. She'd have them chasing each other around playing tag, doing cool moves like she saw gymnasts doing when the Olympics were on television, or even some ballet moves.

Amu wasn't good at sports herself, she was only eight, and not very coordinated, sometimes a little clumsy even, though she was fairly alright at running. Still, that meant nothing on the Layer. If she could imagine her angels doing it, then they did. It was wonderful to see, and very gratifying for the little girl who had such difficulty with everything else she tried her hand at that was more complicated than her basic academics or running.

~oOo~

Amu had just turned twelve when her parents finally moved out of the cramped apartment she'd grown up in and into the small house which while, yes, small, was much bigger and allowed for her and Ami to have their own rooms.

Unfortunately for the shy girl – who had recently died her strawberry-blonde hair to be bubblegum pink that was very similar to that on the head of her angel-Amu – this meant that she was going to change schools, as they had changed neighbourhoods. Due to her father's success as a nature photographer, and her mother's owning, running, and successful marketing of a housewives' magazine, that meant Seiyo Academy.

Amu got her new uniform, and then instantly some extra fabric in the same red plaid so that she could make some adjustments. It wasn't the best looking thing, but with her improvements it wasn't _so_ bad, and both the white shirt and black jacket that were part of it could at least be put to other uses outside of school if she ever had to look sophisticated.

Unfortunately, the box that had her angels in it had gotten lost somewhere along the way. The movers promised to find it for them, they were nice guys and didn't like the idea of any little girl losing her two favourite dolls. That Ami's hand-made doll was in with them was pulling power as well. It took _dedicated practice_ to be able to resist Ami's big browns in either begging mode or brimming on the edge of tearful. The movers hadn't stood a chance against the four-year-old – who at that moment had been employing both.

~oOo~

Amu's first day at her new school came, and for once she stood alone – without her angels in her bag – and she was nervous as she stood up in front of her new classmates.

"Nice to meetcha," she said, finally giving up on thinking of anything better to say.

It seemed to be enough though, and for some strange reason impressed everybody to the point where, by lunch time, Amu was hearing crazy rumours about her being 'cool and spicy' as well as really tough. It was ridiculous. So she'd made her own leg-warmers to match the skirt, wore a belt over an un-tucked shirt and had an arm-band pinned onto her sleeve. So what? She wasn't the tidiest dresser, that was all really.

The next day was even worse. Amu had no idea that this new area that her family had moved to was so full of gossips. Kids from _another school_ who were bullying one of her under-classmen ran away screaming just because she asked them to stop blocking the path – and the kid was acting like some kind of fan!

It was depressing – and then it got freaky when the fortune teller on television seemed to be joining in the conversation, telling them about a guardian angel that hovered by their shoulders, and as much as the idea freaked her out, Amu still prayed for courage that night to her guardian angel, and that night hoping that soon her dolls would be brought back to her.

Having eggs show up in her bed the following morning was _not_ what she had in mind. Still, her angel dolls had come in eggs, perhaps there was more to the idea than just a toy strategy. Maybe angels really did come in eggs. Amu swallowed nervously, picked up the eggs – which were warm – and decided that, strange as things were all of a sudden, she'd take care of her new eggs.

"Amu, the movers called last night while you were in the bath. They've found the box with your dolls in it. They'll be here when you get home at the end of school today."

Amu smiled. "Thanks Mama!"

It had suddenly become a _very_ good day, even if it _was_ still a bit weird.

~oOo~

The day became _very_ weird shortly after seeing the the school's sort-of student-council: the guardians – in their 'royal capes' and all – and then being given the run-down by the two girls who were probably a cross between the gossip-queens of their class, and the biggest fangirls held within same. Amu couldn't help but think those two a little worrying, even if she did want some friends in this new school, rather than be held at an admiring arm's length because she was 'cool and spicy'.

The moment that she saw Hotori Tadase, Amu got a crush on him. Moments later, she knew she would never tell him. In part, this was because she was shy. Another part of this was because, really, it hadn't taken long to build an image in her new school, and she felt it was important to keep up appearances.

In her bag, one of her eggs twitched – and she heard it. Peeking in, she nearly panicked. They couldn't hatch _here_! That would be hard to explain in the _best_ of situations.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and Amu quickly closed her bag and turned to look at who was there.

Ah, the King's Chair of the school's 'guardians', Hotori Tadase himself, in all of his beauty.

"Excuse me," he said, "but would you be -?"

Amu did her best to be polite about shrugging his hand off of her shoulder, but she really wasn't comfortable being so close to the boy. She had a crush on him after all! "If you're done being familiar?" she asked, stepping away. "Was there was something you wanted? No? I have to get to class."

As she walked off though, she heard whispers, murmurs and not-even-pretending-to-be-hushed comments. It really made her sigh in frustration with this new school.

There was an assembly last thing of the day, and Amu just stared at Hotori as he spoke from the stage, and then asked if anybody in the student body had anything to say.

"I think you're wonderful Prince!" Amu declared, standing, though she had no idea why – except for a small voice that had sounded, whispering in her ear about being a courageous girl.

"I'm sorry," Hotori answered from the stage. "There is someone else I have already given my heart to."

Amu nodded and sat down again. She would run, as fast as she could out, just as soon as the assembly was over. She had, for reasons unknown, declared her feelings, _publicly_, and he'd very politely turned her down. Amu calmly spent the rest of the assembly not listening to whatever was said, while she determined to get over it.

Outside at last, Amu did the only thing she truly excelled at: she ran. She hadn't realised that she had run into a construction site until she fell into a pit.

"Ow," she groaned, sitting up from where she'd landed in a heap. "How am I going to get out of here?" she asked quietly before yelling out. "Hello? Is there someone there? Can someone get me out of here?"

"Why not fly out?" asked the _same_ voice that had talked about being a courageous girl.

Amu looked down. The voice had come from her bag that time, and the pink egg was wriggling itself free, glowing, bouncing, and then it _hatched_!

"Hi, I'm Ran!"

"Hi," Amu answered, staring, wide eyed, at this tiny little girl all in pink and looking something like a cheerleader.

"So, are we getting out of this hole?" Ran suggested, winking. "Hop, step, _jump_!"

And then Amu was up in the air, going very fast, until she finally stopped at the _top_ of the skeleton building.

"Ah!" she screamed, holding tight to the nearest upright as she stared at the distant ground. "Very not good."

~oOo~

Amu stared, openly, when an older boy jumped, just about bounced, right up to the other end of the skeletal wall she was standing on and then calmly walked along towards her, as though gravity and falling were things that happened to other people. That he had a small thing, much like Ran she guessed, with cat paws, tail, and ears hovering by his shoulder holding a lock – and she noticed that the boy also had cat ears and tail – made Amu no less nervous.

"I smell eggs," the boy said. "Could one of them be the embryo?"

The small cat-boy giggled as he floated. "We've been very lucky today, first the Humpty Lock, and now chara eggs."

Suddenly he was behind her, and his hand was in her pocket, feeling around in ways she felt highly inappropriate considering that the pocket was _obviously_ empty.

"You can't touch me there!" she yelped.

He backed away, but he was also holding up the two unhatched eggs and smiling. He started to walk off, probably smug because Amu was clearly terrified of moving from where she was clinging.

She was terrified, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. Amu steeled herself and ran after him yelling for him to give her eggs back.

Surprise was written across his face, and he dropped the eggs as Amu charged him.

8Amu dived after them.

The Humpty Lock streaked after her, surprising everyone, and Amu was even more surprised to find herself in a pink cheerleader outfit, just floating waaaaaaay above the ground. Then the outfit was gone and she was falling again, and the next thing she knew she was being held in Hotori Tadase's arms.

"Ikuto!" Hotori yelled, and Amu blinked in surprise to see that the boy still holding her was glaring at the cat-eared older boy.

"Oh dear," she said, very quietly, to herself.

~oOo~

Amu was glad that the confrontation between the two boys had been short, and more importantly that Hotori had put her down. As soon as her feet were on solid ground again, and she'd thanked him for catching her, she'd run off. She wanted her angels. For that matter, she wanted to talk to her mother.

"How was your day Amu?" her mother asked, handing over the two dolls with a smile, knowing that was why her eldest daughter had practically burst through the door.

"Weird," Amu answered, pulling her dolls close in a desperate hug, and then started telling her mother about her day, about getting rejected and getting over it, about meeting a real person who looked just like her Ikuto – and even had the same name! – she even brought out the eggs that had been in her bed that morning, and did her best to introduce Ran, which was a little hard since it seemed that the small pink girl wasn't completely visible to her mother.

"I'm sorry Amu," she said. "I can see a sort of slightly-pink area, and when you say she's talking I can almost hear something, like a conversation happening next door, but I'm just going to have to take your word for it. The eggs are very pretty though."

Amu nodded her understanding of this, and Ran did her best to explain as well, information which Amu relayed to her mother.

"Well, let's go to Piffle Princess and you can play Angelic Layer for a while, and get you some fabric to try making some new clothes for them as well. Who knows, maybe you'll even enter in your first official battle, hmm?"

Amu's eyes lit up at the prospect. She'd been allowed to practice a lot, renting a table and playing by herself with her mother or father watching, sometimes even with Ami watching, but she'd never entered an official battle before. If she won an official battle, she'd get a card and be eligible to enter the regional games!

She wondered sometimes if they'd let her use both of her angels at once in an official game, but she'd never asked before. It looked like today was going to be the day that she found out.

~oOo~

It turned out that Amu would _not_ be allowed to compete with both of her angels at the same time, and actually had to compete – and win – twice to get both of her angels registered as eligible to compete in the regional games when they came around.

It was a good thing that she'd come with her mother, her papa wouldn't have let her battle. Most of Amu's experience in battles was when she'd gone to Piffle Princess on her own after school. None of those were official battles though, just a bit of a light spar with the upper-classmen who lived in the same direction as her.

Amu managed to win her fights though. Both of them. She had a lot of practice fighting with one angel at a time, as well as giving her old upper-classmen a challenge by fighting her two against their one. Once Amu had won both of her fights, she celebrated by setting her angels to dancing together on the layer. There was already something of a crowd, since it was an official fight, but angels dancing, controlled by the same deus, drew even more. There was a big round of applause when Amu finished the dance, gathered her angels, and got up from her chair at the layer side.

"I am very impressed young lady," a man in a white lab-coat said. "What ever gave you the idea?"

"I wanted them to be a team, partners, and... they're too pretty to only want to fight all the time, so dancing is something nice for them to do other times," Amu answered.

The man smiled and pulled out his wallet. "Well, I think that's fantastic. You came up with it all on your own huh? Here, this is my card. I'd really appreciate it if you or your parents would call me some time and we can talk about your angels and the sorts of things you do for practice."

Amu took the card and nodded before looking down at it. Her honey-coloured eyes grew wide as she read the name and title. "The inventor of Angelic Layer?" she breathed in awe, looking up again.

"Yeah, but I don't go bragging about it, and I'd appreciate if you'd keep it to yourself, okay? Just call me Mr Icchan."

Amu nodded. "I can do that," she promised. "My mother is here somewhere, would you like to talk to her now?"

Icchan smiled. "I'd really like that."

Amu took Icchan's hand in her one – that wasn't holding her angels – and tugged him over to where her mother had sat to wait for her.

"Amu? Who is this?"

"Call me Icchan," he said, sliding another of his business cards over to Mrs Hinamori. "I have a few things I'd really like to talk to you, your husband, and your daughter about."

Again, eyes grew wide as they read what was on the card. She looked passed the bit where it said 'creator of Angelic Layer' and onto the part where it said 'head of research and development for cybertronic prosthetics'.

"I was very impressed by what your daughter managed to accomplish with her angels. It's never been done before, never been thought of before," Icchan said.

"You want her help in the research department?" she asked quietly.

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble. My younger brother helps out with his angel as well sometimes, so she would at least have some company if she, and you, agree. Oujiro is only a couple of years older than her."

"We only just moved here, so Amu hasn't really made a lot of friends yet. She does love her angels though. I'm sure she'd love to help out, and I'm all for it," she chuckled. "I could even do a piece in my magazine about it! How a toy is helping to bring medicine forward."

Icchan smiled. "We'd really appreciate that. It might even get us some more funding, which is why we brought out the angels in the first place when they were originally just a part of the research process."

~oOo~

That night on her bed, Amu struggled with the fabric in her hands. "It won't come right!" she complained in the quiet of her room. "I know what I want it to look like, but it won't do what I want!"

A dry chuckle, one that was similar to Ran's giggle but at the same time very different, echoed through the room and Amu froze before whipping her head over to where she'd set her eggs. Ran had gone to sleep in her egg an hour ago, so it wasn't her. The blue one was cracked open, a tiny hand holding up the top half, and a pair of blue eyes peeking out.

Amu smiled crookedly. "I don't suppose you have any idea how to fix this?" she asked, holding up the bit of fabric in her hands. "Maybe my fingers are just too big to do this sort of thing now," she added with a sad sigh. The last time she'd made an outfit for her angels had been when Ami was only one year old.

"Don't give up Amu," the little blue chara said earnestly, completely leaving her egg behind and floating over. "I'm Miki, you're artistic self."

Amu smiled. "You're the one I need to talk to then," she said with relief. "I'm making a new outfit for each my angels," Amu explained, gesturing to the two dolls that were sitting up on the shelf next to her bed. "This one isn't turning out the way I want it to though."

Miki nodded and floated closer to the small garment.

Amu held it up as straight as she could, so that Miki could see what she was trying to accomplish.

Miki pulled a sketch pad and a pencil from her bag and drew something quickly. "Like this?" she asked, turning it around for Amu to look at.

Amu smiled. "Almost," she agreed. "I wanted this bit to be more flowing," she explained, tracing her fingertip over the skirt that Miki had drawn as shaped and slightly stiff.

Miki turned her pad around again, adjusted the drawing, and showed Amu again.

"That's it!"

Together, they re-cut the fabric and stitched it up. Amu found that Miki's little hands were very good at sewing, for which the pink-haired girl was very grateful.

"Will you help me get better at drawing my designs Miki?" Amu asked.

Miki beamed. "That's why I'm here!" She said happily.

~oOo~

Amu stood in front of the door to her classroom. She really didn't want to go in there, not after having confessed yesterday in front of the whole school. Ran had tried giving her a pep-talk already that morning about trying again to win the blonde's affections, but Amu had cut her down.

"No!" she'd said. "Bad enough I did something in _public_ that should only ever be done in _private_," she scolded the little pink girl. "But I also got rejected. So no, I will not be trying again. He said that there's someone _else_ he cares about anyway and I made myself get over it while I sat through the rest of the assembly, alright?"

Ran had cowered behind her pompoms and gone back to sit in her egg.

"Timing, Ran," Miki scolded. "Timing."

Well, the time was now to go through that door and face what ever the rumour mill had cooked up this time. She only hoped that nobody knew about what had happened _after_ school, between leaving and going to Piffle Princess.

The room went silent, and everybody stared at her as she walked over to her desk, resolutely ignoring them all even as she wondered what they were all thinking. She didn't think she'd seen anybody here at Piffle Princess, and she had her angels in her bag along with Ran, Miki and her not-yet-hatched green egg.

"Hinamori-san?" asked one of the girls, her partner in gossip and fangirling beside her. "You were great yesterday!"

"Being able to confess just like that was amazing!" added the second girl, even as more crowded around.

"Knowing that you like the prince makes me feel closer to you," the first one said, still excited.

"You've got that really cool character, but you have those feelings too right?" the second continued.

Did they read each other's minds? Or just share the one to be able to talk like that? And suddenly she was approachable, and her classmates would talk to her. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

The door opened again.

"Excuse me," said the girl on the other side as she stepped in. It was Fujisaki Nadeshiko, the Queens Chair of the Guardians. It was ridiculous the way that her just walking into a classroom caused such admiration, and then she stopped right in front of Amu. "Hinamori Amu-san?"

"Yeah," Amu said, standing up to be on eye-level with the other girl.

Nadeshiko produced an envelope, sealed with red wax and held it out. "After school today, we'll be waiting for you in the Royal Garden," she said.

"Royal Garden?" Amu asked, taking the envelope and staring at the red wax blob, confused.

"In addition, I have a message from Hotori-kun," Nadeshiko whispered. "'I'll tell you about the eggs,' he said. We'll see you after school," she declared, turning and heading out the door once more.

"Oh!" Amu half-exclaimed. She _couldn't_ go. She already had a commitment. She was going to the Angelic Layer R&D building after school today with her mother. But Nadeshiko was gone, and Amu was surrounded by her classmates.

"Oh wow Hinamori-san!" exclaimed the girl who would be labelled in Amu's mind forever as 'fangirl/gossip 1', simply by virtue of her usually being the one to speak first. "You've been invited for tea at the Royal Garden!"

"Tea?" Amu asked, confused, curious and just a little frustrated.

"Yes, that's an invitation," chirped the appropriate 'fangirl/gossip 2'.

"An invitation lets you refuse, and has more notice. I already have something I'm doing after school today," Amu said, already exhausted by her day as she sat back down. And she had sports class later today.

Amu winced a little and looked at Ran. At least she had Miki to keep the pink girl in line a little. Miki at least understood the meaning of the phrase "there is a time and a place," and was able to stop Ran from forcing Amu to do a demonstration on the bar for the third graders.

During lunch, she asked the two fangirl/gossipers to take her invitation to the Royal Garden for her.

"What? Why?" they asked together.

Amu took out the invitation, and quickly wrote on the blank side as she answered the two girls. "I already have after school plans. If Fugisaki-san had waited for an answer, I'd have told her so. I'll have time tomorrow, but not today." The same thing was written on the envelope. "Also, give them this?" she asked, pulling the lock she'd gotten the other day out of her bag. "I picked it up yesterday. They'd be the ones to give someone's dropped treasure to, right?" she suggested, not giving away anything at all about how it had come into her possession. There was no way she was going to talk about that to _these_ two.

"It doesn't look familiar," said number 1, taking the lock.

"But the Guardians will be able to find out for sure," asserted number 2 as she took the letter.

Amu smiled. "Thanks," she said gratefully.

~oOo~

"You must be the new deus that Icchan said was coming to help today. I'm Yuko," greeted a women with dark red hair cut short around her face and a pale purple jacket. A jacket that had her name tag on.

Amu and her mother smiled.

"I'm Hinamori Midori, and this is my daughter Hinamori Amu."

"Pleased to meet you," Amu said quietly, her two angels cradled against her chest with one arm – since she'd left her bag in the car – and extended her free hand to shake Yuko's.

"The girl who figured out how to make two angels dance together," Yuko said with a smile, shaking Amu's hand. "We're going to run some tests on your angels, ask you some questions about how you programmed them and how you practised, and record a demonstration if that's alright."

Amu nodded. "That's alright," she agreed.

As well as that, Amu got to meet Icchan's step-brother Oujiro, and the legendary Shu, the champion of the Layer, the _other_ inventor of the game, the person who was the reason that it existed in the first place.

She got to listen in on her mother interviewing everybody for her magazine as well. It was a lot more interesting than any of the other articles Amu had ever seen her mother do. Then again, Amu had never been all that interested in which was the best washing powder to buy. Angelic Layer, on the other hand, Amu absolutely loved. Finding out that it helped people as well only made it even better.

~oOo~

"It belonged _to_ the Guardians!" number 1 declared proudly when Amu came to class the next morning.

"With special instructions from the very first King's Chair to give it to a student who filled some special requirements," added number 2.

"Hotori-kun said it would belong to _you_ Hinamori-san!" number 1said, clearly very excited.  
"But he wouldn't say what the 'special requirements' were," number 2 pouted.

Amu sighed. "Well, I'll see them after school today and they can tell me then," she said. "They did agree to that, right?" she asked.

The girls nodded.

Amu smiled. "Thanks," she said gratefully.

"So where were you yesterday Hinamori-san?" asked number 1.

Amu winked. "It's a secret," she answered quietly, a finger held up over her lips. "I can't give away my mother's magazine articles before she goes to print!"

The girls' eyes went wide as they almost gasped in awe. "So cool!"

~oOo~

Amu walked, calmly, to the Royal Garden after school. Ran and Miki floated by her shoulders, her angels were in her bag with the green egg, and she'd had a fairly normal day so far. The green egg hadn't even twitched. She'd had a lot of time to compose herself.

"Time for the tea party!" Ran declared happily.

"Yeah," Amu agreed, looking up at the fancy glass house. "Glad that I'm on regular speaking terms with those two girls now," she said with a light chuckle. "They know _way_ too much about everybody, but it means I know who everybody is going in," Amu said as she opened the door and let herself in.

"Wow," Miki said. "It's so beautiful in here."

Amu and Ran couldn't help but agree.

"Welcome to our Royal Garden," Hotori greeted from the top step of a small pavilion in the middle of the garden. The rest of the Guardians were standing there with him. Each one had a chara floating beside them. "Introductions first," he said with a smile. "I'm -"

"Hotori Tadase," Amu interrupted. "King's Chair, fifth grade." She turned to Nadeshiko. "Fujisaki Nadeshiko, Queen's Chair, also fifth grade. Souma Kukai," she continued, turning to the older boy. "Jack's Chair, soccer captain, sixth grade, and Yuiki Yaya, Ace Chair, fourth grade, very big fan of cute things."

The Guardians all blinked at her in surprised.

"Not exactly difficult to find out," Amu said. "Close your mouths before you catch flies," she advised. "You obviously know who I am, so I'll just introduce Ran -" Ran waved, "- and Miki." Miki waved as well.

"Our information said that you were bashful," Nadeshiko said, recovering first. "This girl is Temari," she said, introducing her chara.

"Guess our information was wrong," Hotori said, smiling weakly in embarrassment. "My chara is Kiseki," he added, gesturing to his own chara, who swished his cape dramatically.

Kukai just laughed. "This dude is Daichi," he said with a grin.

"This is Pepe-chan," Yaya said, gesturing to the baby-like chara.

Amu nodded and sat down with them at the table. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Hotori passed over a picture book, and once Amu had read up to the torn-out page, explained to her about heart-eggs, X-eggs, and the duty that the Guardians tried to perform.

"Your character transformations would come in real handy when dealing with X-eggs," Kukai added with a rather winsome smile.

"Except that I have no idea how I did that," Amu pointed out.

"So can we count on you joining the Guardians?" Hotori asked, sliding the lock – the Humpty Lock – across the table to her.

Amu pushed it back. "No," she answered. All that practice resisting Ami's begging face sure came in useful. She shouldn't need to be using that resolve in the face of a fellow fifth-year though. She really shouldn't.

"No?" Nadeshiko repeated in shock.

"It sounds awfully like a full-time job," Amu pointed out. "Living up to the dreams that brought Ran, Miki and my third egg into my life is going to take up a lot of time as it is, and I'm not exactly free on weekends at the moment."

"The Humpty Lock belongs to you anyway," Hotori insisted, rising from his chair and putting the lock on its chain around Amu's neck.

"What do you mean your weekends aren't free right now?" Yaya asked. "I didn't think fifth years had a lot of homework."

"It's not because of homework," Amu answered, ignoring the blonde boy behind her resolutely. She'd _had_ a crush on him, he'd rejected her, she was _over it_.

"Amu and Ikuto are going dancing tomorrow," Miki said with a smile.

Everybody in the room froze.

"Ikuto?" Hotori asked. "Tsukiyomi Ikuto? That thieving cat?"

Amu couldn't help it. She brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she started to giggle, but her shoulders shook as she tried to hold in more laughter.

"What's so funny?" Yaya asked with a pout.

Amu took a couple of deep breaths and reached into her bag, pulling out her angels. "Amu," she said, holding up her pink-haired angel, "and Ikuto," she added, holding up the blue-haired one. "I've had them for years. That I've moved into an area that has a boy called Ikuto who happens to look a lot like my angel is a strange coincidence."

"May I have a closer look?" Nadeshiko asked, holding out a hand, her honey-brown eyes staring fixedly at the dolls.

Amu handed over her angel-Amu. "Do you mean to tell me you've never heard of or played Angelic Layer?" she asked, shocked and amused, but mostly shocked.

Every head shook.

Amu grinned and the little cross in her hair turned into a love-heart as she took her angel back from Nadeshiko. "Then we're all going to Piffle Princess right now, and going shopping!" she insisted, linking one elbow with Nadeshiko's and the other with Kukai's before she dragged them out of the Royal Garden and down the street to the nearest Piffle Princess.

~oOo~

"Amu-san!" a voice called.

Amu smiled. "Oujiro-san, what are you doing here?" she answered, dragging the Guardians with her through the crowd to meet with Prince of the Layer.

"Miss Shuuko's daughter arrived in Tokyo recently, and Icchan and I are keeping an eye on her while she's here," Oujiro answered, gesturing to a girl who was about Kukai's age, but wearing a different school uniform. "She doesn't know that we know her mother though. Miss Shuuko wants to keep it quiet about her illness and why she's been away from her daughter for the past seven years."

Amu's eyes went wide and she nodded. "Right," she said quietly. "Oh, introductions," she said, shaking her head. "Oujiro-san, please meet Fujisaki-san, Souma-kun, Hotori-san and Yuiki-chan. I just found out that they've never heard of Angelic Layer, and I couldn't let them be uneducated a moment longer."

Oujiro laughed. "Well, Icchan should be back any second, and I think Misaki will be alright on her own for that length of time," he said. "Shall we?"

Amu grinned and released herself from Nadeshiko and Kukai long enough to drag Yaya over to loop her arm around Oujiro's.

Ran and Miki were both laughing happily, and Amu winked at them surreptitiously. She was getting the hang of this chara-change business, and didn't mind at all right now that she still had a heart-shaped hair-clip instead of her usual cross-shaped one.

"Amu said something about her angels dancing?" Nadeshiko asked as Oujiro and Amu led them through the shelves.

"Fujisaki-san?" Oujiro asked, making sure he'd gotten the right name.

Nadeshiko nodded.

"As in the Fujisaki school of dancing?" he double-checked.

Nadeshiko nodded again, cheeks just a tiny bit pinked.

"Yes, Amu-san has her angels dance on the Layer. She's the first person who has ever synchronised two angels to respond simultaneously from the same deus, which makes her very interesting to the research and development department of the Angelic Layer company. Most deuses just do battle with their angels on the Layer though."

"And Oujiro-san's angel Wizard is _impossible_ to hit," Amu complained with a pout before giving a light-hearted but rueful chuckle.

~oOo~

The following school day, Nadeshiko thanked Amu by booking the cooking room after school and teaching her how to bake a fruit tart. The other girl had just left to fetch the fruit, leaving Amu to whip the cream alone, when the third egg reacted to Amu's nerves about whipping the cream on her own.

Or started to.

Ikuto showed up and somehow cut it short.

"It wasn't the first two," he said, looking at Miki and Ran. "What will happen this time?" he asked, holding his hand out. His chara dropped Amu's green egg into his hand. "Is it the embryo?" he practically _purred_ the question before he licked the egg.

"Give it back!" Amu yelled, running around the counter, reaching for it.

Suddenly she was pressed against him as she reached, and her eyes were locked onto his instead of her egg. There was a moment of surprised, surreal connection, and their legs gave out beneath both of them, Amu landing on her back, Ikuto above her with his hands by her head and his knees just outside of hers.

Amu's green egg dropped on the floor, thankfully bouncing rather than breaking.

"Why do you want my eggs?" Amu asked, quietly, as she stared up at him. Her cheeks growing hot as he just stared back at her, his mouth open just the tiniest bit. She could feel his breathing. "An embryo... what is an embryo?"

The door opened then. Nadeshiko had returned it seemed.

"That's enough!" Nadeshiko yelled. "Get away from her!"

Ikuto stood up, and Amu crawled away towards her friend.

"Amu, are you alright?"

"Just fine," she answered, pressing her hands cool to her hot cheeks, hoping to get the blush to fade faster.

"Temari, chara-change," Nadeshiko ordered.

Amu, Ran and Miki stared in shock at the vicious person that Nadeshiko became with Temari's change – though it did explain why Nadeshiko was so thrilled to be introduced to Angelic Layer, where battles were the order of the day – and then horror as her tart-crust was knocked off the bench.

"Don't worry," a little, happy voice promised. "Leave it to Su."

Su, Amu's third chara, proceeded to help make an even worse mess with the whipped cream, and the crust still wasn't saved.

"We could start again," Nadeshiko offered.

Amu shook her head. "We don't have that much time, or ingredients," she pointed out. "It was doomed to fail from the beginning anyway," she said. "I'm just no good at making sweets. Better this than finishing and finding that it's bad." Amu didn't even notice that she was crying as she spoke.

"We can still make cookies with the left over dough," Su interjected.

Ikuto left without saying goodbye. Without answering any of Amu's questions actually. None of them noticed immediately, too busy focused on making the new treats, but when Amu got home with her share of the biscuits, she remembered then. When it was too late to do anything about it.

~oOo~

Amu hadn't won her fight in time for her card to come through before the regional games, so she sat in the stands instead, watching the very first of Misaki's fights. She wasn't the only one of course; she heard Misaki's friends a few seats over cheering _very_ loudly. After the match, Amu took her angels and headed home. With the games happening at the moment, the R&D team were busy with all the data that they were gathering from the matches, so she wasn't needed there just now.

Hotori had tried to announce that she was a fifth guardian, the Joker, at the assembly earlier that day, but she'd shot it down immediately. "What part of 'no' did you not hear when you _asked_ me to join?" she'd demanded. Really, she didn't mind being friends with Nadeshiko and Kukai once she'd gotten to know them, but that display in the middle of Piffle Princess when she'd described Hotori as the 'prince' of Seiyo! It had truly been embarrassing, and the explanation that the others had given of why they followed him really wasn't up to snuff.

"It was a good fight for Misaki-san," Amu said to herself as she stood on her little balcony and drank her milk.

"What are you smiling about?" Ikuto asked, his face appearing upside-down in front of Amu.

She sprayed her milk and jumped back in shock, arms going around her chest and shoulders as she was only in her after-bath dress, not even her proper pyjamas.

"Even if you drink that, your chest won't get any bigger," Ikuto commented.

"Not why I drink it!" Amu answered sharply. "What are you doing here?"

Ikuto held up a plastic bag, not looking at Amu any more.

"This is for you. 'To repay the debt,' he says," his chara said, appearing over Ikuto's shoulder.

Amu blinked in surprised. "Debt?" she asked.

"There are lots of snacks in here," Su said.

"Like an old lady candy store," Miki commented.

"What's the meaning of this?" Amu asked, staring into the bag, confused.

"You were making these right? Snacks?" Ikuto reminded.

"Huh? Oh, you mean the tart," Amu realised.

"Tart huh? All snacks are basically the same," Ikuto said with a shrug.

Amu shook her head. These were completely different. Still, it was a nice thought, and ... her eye caught on _her_ Ikuto. "Thank you," she said. "Would you stay and share them with me?" she asked. "You never did answer my questions about the embryo after all, and even with these three to help, I'd never get through all these."

Ikuto was visibly surprised, but Amu just waved him in, setting the bag on her desk and climbing into her cupboard. It was awkward getting into her pyjamas in there, but she felt a lot better about being in company when she was all covered up.

When she re-emerged, she smiled. Ikuto had spotted her angels, and it looked like her chara were showing his around the doll house she had used to use for her off-the-Layer games with her angels, but now let her chara live in.

"His name is Ikuto as well," she said quietly, "and I gave her my name," she added when Ikuto had turned sharply to look at her. "Ikuto is her prince, her knight in shining armour, her protector. Amu is his princess, his treasure, the one who guards his heart."

"They're just dolls," Ikuto said quietly, defensively.

Amu laughed gently. "You obviously don't know anything about Angelic Layer either," she said with a smile. "I'd drag you off like I did the Guardians, but I think Piffle Princess is closed at the moment."

"You know, if you join them we'll become enemies," Ikuto said, nodding at where the Humpty Lock sat on Amu's desk.

"Because Hotori wants this mystical embryo as well?" Amu guessed, sitting on the end of her bed, gesturing for him to take the chair and open the snacks. "Well I'm not a Guardian," she said. "I like Fujisaki-san and Souma-kun well enough I suppose, but I've been exposed to Hotori's dark side and Yuiki-chan is..." Amu winced. "Obsessively childish. They just decided that I'd keep the lock anyway."

"And the X-eggs?" Ikuto asked.

"You mean the dreams that kids gave up on?" Amu answered. "What do you do when you find them?"

"Break them," Ikuto admitted.

"Then those are dreams that people are never going to get back," Amu said. "If there's another way to deal with them, and if I can do that, then I'd rather not destroy somebody's dream just because it could get destructive."

Ikuto nodded his understanding.

"What's your chara's name?" Amu asked, changing the subject.  
"Yoru."

~oOo~

Amu didn't see Ikuto for a few weeks after that. Between homework, the regional games, the national games, and helping with the R&D department, and the occasional X-egg showing up – _every single time_ she spent any time with Kukai and Nadeshikio outside of watching matches, Amu barely had any free time left over to relax in.

When she went to watch the games, Amu generally had Nadeshiko on one side and Kukai on the other. Hotori and Yaya hadn't taken to Angelic Layer at all, so they didn't come often. Amu made sure that, come the national games, she was able to watch all of Oujiro's, Misaki's and Miss Shuuko's games though.

"She's amazing," Nadeshiko admired during one of Athena's matches.

Amu smiled. "Of course she is," she said. "She's the champion. She's _been_ the champion since the creation of Angelic Layer. Everybody who plays wants a chance to meet Athena on the Layer. No one has ever beaten her yet."

"You almost sound like you expect somebody to do it this year," Nadeshiko said.

Amu just smiled and winked the way that Nadeshiko was always doing, and turned back to the game. She wasn't telling anybody that Misaki was the champion's daughter. That was for Miss Shuuko to tell her daughter on her own.

"There is the miracle rookie to consider," pointed out a voice from the seat behind.

"Ikuto!" Amu said, smiling as she turned around to see his face. "How have you been?"

"You're on familiar terms with him?" Kukai asked.

"Hotori-kun won't appreciate that," Nadeshiko pointed out.

Amu huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "And he rejected me publicly, if you recall. Not a problem," she answered them, then turned back to Ikuto. "So?"

Ikuto smiled and pulled out his own angel. "Amu, meet Amu," he said, holding out the pink-haired angel that Amu had helped him shop for the last time they'd seen each other.

Amu laughed. "With three of us, that's going to get confusing," she said, taking the doll's hand between her forefinger and thumb, shaking it politely. "Have you battled with her yet?" she asked.

Ikuto nodded. "Not an official battle," he said. "Just against my sister."

"Utau plays Angelic Layer?" Amu asked, amused.

Ikuto chuckled. "When I came home with this, she insisted," Ikuto explained, shaking his head. "I'm just glad hers doesn't look like me."

Amu laughed. She hadn't met Ikuto's sister, but that night he'd come over with the bag of snacks they'd talked about a lot of things, his family included. "Will you go to Piffle Princess with me after the match?" she asked.

Ikuto smiled. "I'd like that."

"Us too!" Kukai insisted fiercely. "I want to fight against Amu's double-team!"

Amu laughed.

"Shh!" Nadeshiko insisted. "The match is starting!"

~The End~


End file.
